It was an stupefying spectacle . A 70 - meter - tall SpaceX rocket performing a controlled descent toward a tiny objective where two giant mechanically skillful limb were hold back to clasp it just meters above the ground .
Sunday ’s bold drive was SpaceX ’s first attempt at “ catching ” the Super Heavy booster , andto many people ’s surprise , it nailed it .
K of discrete vehicle and pad criterion had to be come across prior to catching the Super Heavy booster . Thanks to the tireless work of SpaceX engineers , we succeeded with catch on our first attempt.pic.twitter.com/6wa5v6xHI0
& mdash ; SpaceX ( @SpaceX)October 13 , 2024
So , now what ?
Well , the contiguous goal for SpaceX is to apply the Super Heavy booster to carry a qualify version of the Starship spacecraft — called the Starship Human Landing System ( HLS ) — to a lunar orbit in NASA ’s Artemis III mission , which could take billet as early as 2026 .
But until that can happen , the Elon Musk - led spacefaring company will call for to carry out many more exam of the Starship system , which comprises the first - stage Super Heavy booster — the most powerful ever to fly — and the upper - stage Starship spacecraft .
In these approaching tests , which SpaceX will be keen to set in motion before the remnant of the year , the team will attempt to repeat and hone the amazing “ catch ” tactic that it performed for the first time on Sunday . Bringing it home in this way enables SpaceX to quickly refurbish what will before long be multiple Super Heavy boosters before quickly launching them again as part of a recyclable system that drastically bring down operational toll .
SpaceX also needs to demo the power to refuel Starship in Earth domain , which is crucial for the proposed lunar military mission . Additionally , it has to do at least one uncrewed manifestation mission that regard the Starship HLS land on the lunar surface and then sneak off .
The Artemis III foreign mission will see up to four cosmonaut fly to a lunar arena aboard NASA ’s Orion spacecraft , which will be launched by the place representation ’s muscular Space Launch System ( SLS ) rocket .
Meanwhile , the Starship HLS will also arrive in a lunar scope after being launched by the Super Heavy . The spaceship HLS will then dock with the Orion , enabling two of the gang members to reassign to SpaceX ’s vehicle , which will then descend to the moon ’s Earth’s surface for the first crewed lunar landing since the concluding Apollo mission in 1972 . last , the spaceship HLS will carry the two astronauts back to a lunar arena so they can return to the Orion spacecraft for the journey home .
More ambitious goals involve using the Starship for the first crewed missionary station to Mars , and even for building a lasting spaceman base on the red planet .
Musk has an even grander plan , however . remark on Sunday ’s successful mission , Musk wrotein a post on societal media that the first escape and landing of the world ’s most potent skyrocket on Sunday denounce a “ adult step towards making life multiplanetary . ” The SpaceX CEO stated in 2016 that the party has an ambition tomove 1 million people to Marsto create a self - confirm city , though that ’s surely a challenge for engineers that have n’t even been have a bun in the oven yet .
